Highlights

Various Artists: Front & FollowThe Outer Church

The Outer Church was initiated in 2009 by Joe Stannard, an enthusiastic metal-head and long standing contributor to The Wire, The Quietus, and Mojo. As an event, the predominantly Brighton-based congregation is invited to witness musicians and visual artists operating in a field that has been deemed “something weird that resists categorization” by its founder. Indeed, The Outer Church has hosted performances by Raime, Demdike Stare, and The Haxan Cloak, which provides a solid setting for the mood that’s most recently been spun about a double-disc celebration of the project as well as its contributing artists.

The 28-track album was curated by Stannard and features exclusive tracks by Robin The Fog (who performed at one of the release events as Howlround), The Wyrding Module, Black Mountain Transmitter, and Ekoplekz among others. Despite working within a number of different styles, the aesthetic remains torn, dark, and crisp in the context of a project that demonstrates both unification and collaboration across creative minds, of sharing an artistic phenomenon Stannard has done so well at presenting over the past four years — the perfect soundtrack for a sleepless night.

The 300 copies that were released for the initial launch back in August have long since sold out. But due to popular demand, a second edition is in the works and will be available for private, consecrated listening very soon. Keep an eye on the Front & Follow website for more details, and in the meantime, have a listen to previously unreleased tracks by Pye Corner Audio, Hong Kong in the 60s, Hacker Farm, Grumbling Fur, Vindicatrix, and Anna Meredith, which are all available for your streaming pleasure below:

“HIDE FOREVER”

LIL SAD has released a sad-ass beat it made with Swedish sad gravity boy YUNG SHERMAN. Soon to be rapped upon by Swedish gravity boy Bladee, “HIDE FOREVER” features the most heart-wrenchingly woebegone guitar loop you’ll hear all decade. The depressed bass line and anguished vocal sample make it so sad that it may just replace “I Wish It Would Rain” as the ultimate cry-into-your-pillow jam. Seriously, do not listen to this track if you are experiencing thoughts of suicide.

NATIVE SUN​(​S​)​_MIXX

After releasing the fantastic **$​$​EXT8PE? cassette/VHS earlier this year, Brooklyn-based cassette label Bootleg Tapes is back with its second release: a stitched-up mix featuring Dil Withers and Mr. Ł_RD//$M$ again, this time as bessedof. NATIVE SUN​(​S​)​_MIXX, which is part one of a two-part installment, sees these two sample-based vagabonds mixing a fuzzy, kaleidoscopic beat-swirl of jazz, hip-hop, soul, and more. Name your price at Bandcamp or grab a cassette version for $5. It’s limited to 30, so buy, listen, and add wear to the appropriated/channeled/processed vibes of Dil Withers and Ł_RD//$M$.

“Hangliding Thru The City”

As MarQ Spekt hang glides through Atlanta like the schizoid hero from whom he takes his name, time slows down like Franklin’s special driving ability to the point where symbols like mph and $/hr become exactly that — symbols: nothing more, nothing less. Therefore, as we prepare for the sonic boom and subsequent jetlag sure to accompany Jus Play Witit — Spekt’s forthcoming full-length collaboration with cranial hip-hop producer Blockhead — it might do our senses some good to establish a timeline of these artists’ 2013 works heretofore.

- July 15: UK-based hip-hop excavator Chopped Herring Records begins taking orders for MarQ Spekt’s Mark of the Beast EP, an eight-song vinyl consisting mostly of previously released material, but including a few unheard tracks too.

- July 30: In a subtle preview of good things to come, Blockhead and MarQ Spekt’s first (released, but probably not their first recorded) team-up hits the net in the form of “Tinseltown Remix,” a brilliant reworking of the Dour Candy single.

“Dead”

If you’ve ever fantasized about being locked in a car wash with four demented dentists and a scratched Big Black record for four minutes and thirteen seconds, well then have I have just the song for you. It’s coming atcha fresh from legendary Melbourne synth-punks Primitive Calculators, contemporaries of The Birthday Party and Boys Next Door, who’ve been enjoying a resurgence due to a few recent reissues and a 2009 appearance at the Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds-curated All Tomorrow’s Parties in Australia. Despite a few live recordings and compilation tracks, the band has never released a proper studio album since forming in 1978, but that will change on November 1, when Chapter Music releases The World Is Fucked. “Dead” is the name of the first single, a fact that you could probably discern from the first 10 times lead vocalist/guitar player Stuart Grant’s snarls it into the microphone with equal hopelessness and ferocity. With abrasive electronic textures, forcefully nihilistic lyrics, and the rhythm of a repeated stabbing, “Dead” breathes some much-needed life into the now sometimes sadly retrod territory of punk and noise music.

Primitive Calculators’ debut album, The World Is Fucked, is out November 1 on Chapter Music.

2013 Companion Cassette [Side B]

One of the most earnest things you can experience is witnessing people converse in a language neither party is native to speaking. The situation is so genuinely endearing that the development of the conversation becomes that of voyeuristic intrigue, and then you pump your gas full, drop the cap, bend over to pick it up, and your Goldrush Festival 2013 Companion Cassette pops out your shirt pocket, landing on Side B. And helllll yes, it’s reeled to and ready to begin.

SMASH CUT TO: September 27 and 28, 2013, sittin’ on a stool at Sidewinder Tavern or Crash 45, and you trying to talk to your best new pal while ringing rips through your ears after [anyone on this list] just pummeled your psyche, and neither of you know whether it’s noon or midnight. But it don’t matter, ‘cause the language of smiling and laughing is way deeper than just observation. Yet, making the trip out to Colorado and being a part of a culture that people are all in and out and transient feels good in connection to natural enjoyment, happily honing in new auras and vibrations.

So, in continuation with last week’s Side A of the Goldrush Festival 2013 Companion Cassette — Goldrush Music Festival, by the way, is being put on by our very own Strauss and features the likes of Cop Circles, Giant Claw, Lee Noble, Derek Rogers, Thollem Electric’s Keyngdrum Overdrive, and a birth-load more — Tiny Mix Tapes is proud to introduce Side B! Two-day passes are still available, which includes a free Goldrush Festival 2013 Companion Cassette, but iffin’ ya can’t make it out and still wanna grip a tape, hit up Planted Tapes to pre-order one now, shipping October 1!